Portals Among the Undead
by 123123sora
Summary: The survivors have escaped from the bridge from "The Parish" and travel to Michigan in the helicopter. A tank throws a chunk of land at the helicopter, landing them in the middle of a wheat field. Then, a dark brown haired woman emerges from a shack in the wheat field. (may add L4D1 survivors at a later point.)
1. Chapter 1: The Escape

The four had made it to the end of the bridge and had finally boarded the helicopter. The four started cheering as they realized they were finally out of the infected army's grasp. The group had been lead by a large forty-eight year-old, dark-skinned man who was known to the others as "Coach", who was a High School Gym Teacher before the apocalypse started and was still wearing a shirt from the school. Among the others was a twenty-eight year old woman, who used to work in the news, with a pink dépêche mode shirt and dark skin by the name of Rochelle. The other two were Caucasian, one of them, a twenty-three year-old by the name of Ellis, having been a mechanic before the infection spread, also possessing a charming southern accent. The last one was a thirty-five year old who went by the name of Nick. Before the infection had spread around, he had been a con man.

They were in some sort of cargo hold section of the chopper as the pilot seemed to be a bit paranoid of the possibility that the survivors may have been carrying the infection. They had found an intercom device that allowed them to speak with the pilot. Rochelle had asked where they were headed, and the pilot had simply said "Michigan" _Michigan? _Coach thought. "How long's that gonna take?." He asked. The pilot responded, "Probably a few hours. It should be a smooth flight."

A few hours of small conversation later, Nick had gotten tired of waiting. He asked the pilot how much time was left, but the pilot did not respond. The last thing they heard was the word "TANK!" Before a loud thud resounded throughout the chopper and it was sent hurtling towards the ground.

The survivors awoke a few hours later in the cargo hold of the chopper. They were slightly bruised but they had had enough injuries before to have been in possession of pretty durable bodies. Coach pried open the door and looked outside. They appeared to be in the middle of some sort of wheat field. "Where the hell is this?" Nick asked. Ellis replied, "I suppose it's Michigan." They crawled out of the wreckage one by one to see that a large chunk of earth had been taken from the field, and saw in the helicopter wreckage that a tank infected had been crushed by the chopper. "The pilot... He didn't have to go like that." Rochelle said in a melancholy tone.

Nick looked around the field and saw a small shack around fifty feet from the wreckage. He motioned at it so the other survivors would notice it and said, "Look!" The group of four started their journey towards the shack, but found no door on the side they were facing. They heard a clanging noise and then the sound of a slamming door, and Ellis peeked around the corner towards the source of the noise. He saw a woman with a white tank top and an orange jumpsuit tied around her waist. She looked around the environment she was in, completely stunned. Ellis whispered to the other survivors, "There's another person!" They all looked at her from behind the small shack. Then, something unexplainable happened. They heard the clanging noise again, and then a scorched-up box flew out of the door, which then slammed itself shut. The survivors were all confused about what that meant, and the woman turned around to face the box. The woman's smile widened as she hugged the box and sighed softly. She opened her eyes and saw the four strangers staring back at her.

Chell's mouth was wide open as she stared at the four people standing in front of her. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, thinking that maybe they were an illusion. "R-Real.. People." She said as she looked upon them in awe.

Rochelle looked at the woman quizzically and she thought she understood the situation. This woman had obviously been through a lot with the zombie apocalypse and had not seen "real people" in a long while. She helped the woman get on her feet and asked her, "What's your name, sweetie?"  
Chell, eyes still widened from the shock of this encounter, simply responded "Chell". Coach told her the names of all of the survivors, and shook her hand, saying, "And you can call me Coach." He paused as he handed her a spare pistol. "Welcome aboard, Chell." She looked at the foreign object, and picked up the portal gun from the ground near the companion cube. Coach stared at it, asking, "What is that thing? Is that supposed to be a gun?" Chell shook her head no. "Well… Not really. I guess it's useless out in the real world." Coach asked her what she meant. Chell pointed the portal gun at the shack door, and shot a blue portal onto the door. Coach looked at the blue oval, slightly amazed by it. "What's this?" He asked. Chell sat on the companion cube and shot an orange portal onto the wall near the door.

Coach looked through the blue portal in amazement, the other survivors crowding around him as well. Ellis reached through the blue portal and saw that his arm appeared out of the orange one. Chell was slightly amused by their amazement, as she had grown bored of the portal gun's effects after being stuck with it for so long. She recalled the awe that she felt the first time she had picked up the portal gun, the excitement she experienced as she flew through a portal for the first time.

Ellis had traveled through the portal completely and chuckled slightly. The other survivors followed. Nick said, "I find it hard to believe… Is this real?" He scoffed. Chell nodded. She didn't know why, but Nick annoyed her slightly.

A group of twenty or so common infected started running towards them from the distant trees and they were shortening their distance rapidly. Chell asked Coach, "What are those things?" And Coach responded, "Zombies!" as he started shooting them with his shotgun.

Chell's heart nearly stopped. All those times that GLaDOS had told her, "Things have changed since you last left the building" And all of those warning signs of the apocalypse… No, it couldn't be true. And yet, the proof was there. Seemingly mindless, undead... _things_ running towards them.

Chell aimed her pistol shakily at the incoming group of infected and missed three times, but the fourth shot had killed one as they were getting closer. Rochelle, Ellis, Coach, and Nick all had their primary weapons, their guns tearing the group of infected apart. Chell fell to her knees, coming to terms with the reality of what had happened to the world. Coach looked at her and said, "This is what we gotta do, baby girl. It's either you fight or die here." Tears started running down Chell's face. She had fought for her life over and over against GLaDOS. She thought she would have finally been freed from fighting. Everything that she had done… All that she had risked… for this? Ellis looked down at her and gave her a slight smile. "Cmon now, it ain't all that bad. Let's just find somewhere safe to hide, alright?" She didn't know why, but Ellis's voice had calmed her down a bit. She grabbed his hand and stood up.

She asked if they could take along the companion cube, and Coach shook his head. "Now how are you gonna carry that thing around?" She looked at him, then picked up the portal gun and pointed it at the cube, which then began to lift off of the ground. She explained, "The portal gun.. it can lift objects that aren't too heavy." She said. The companion cube had always been surprisingly light and was able to be carried with the portal gun with ease.

Coach asked her why the cube was so important to her. Chell looked to the ground and said, "We've been through a lot together…"

Coach squinted his eyes in confusion for a bit, but then just shrugged and said, "Alright then, let's go." As they started walking towards the distant trees, Chell wiped the last of her tears and followed closely behind.

_I will not fall victim to this world._


	2. Chapter 2: In too Deep

**Okay, so this is a kinda-short chapter.**

In too Deep

_Sometimes you have to leave what you love_

Ellis was the first to make it to the edge of the wheat field, the rest following suit. Chell observed the grassy area that lay before them, standing near the edge of where the wheat was no longer growing. She peered into the expanse of trees, which were to thick to view what was beyond them. She sighed slightly as she put the companion cube down and sat on it.

She asked the others, but no one specifically, "So, what? Are we just going to run into the forest headfirst? What if… what if the zombies get to us?"

Coach shrugged and replied, "Well, us four won't have a problem, see. We're immune. And you - you're probably immune too, seein' as how you survived this long."

Chell looked at him with a raised eyebrow and responded, "Um… I've never seen a zombie before today. I… I haven't been outside in…" she paused. How long was it?

Coach saw that she was sort of spacing out, and waved a hand in front of her face. She shook her head, slightly annoyed, and crossed her arms. Coach started speaking again. "I guess we can try to provide you cover… But if you get attacked by a zombie, well, I guess we'll see what happens."

Chell looked down at the grassy earth, thinking over their options. "So… It's either we stay here and die, or we go into this forest and _maybe_ die?" She looked at Coach. "I think.. I think I like the odds of me almost dying than all of us definitely dying." She stood up. "Well, let's go."

They started into the forest, Coach and Nick in the front, Chell in the middle and Rochelle and Ellis in the back. She looked around her. The fact that she had to be escorted made her feel helpless. She held the companion cube with the portal gun, and continued walking. After about an hour of scattered zombies attacking the group but being quickly dispatched by one of the other survivors, she felt like the companion cube had become a burden and that it might be time to get rid of it. She definitely did not want to abandon her friend, the only one she had made at Aperture, but felt that it might have been necessary.

Coach interrupted her thoughts by pointing ahead at a clearing with a small shack in the middle. They started walking towards the shack, but were interrupted by a sort of deep, half-groaning, half-yelling in the distance.

"Sounds like a charger" Rochelle said. The five walked into the clearing and peered around, looking for any signs of danger. A large zombie appeared from behind two of the trees. It was rather large in stature, one of its arms was muscular, massive and over-sized, while the other one sort of flopped around behind it. Without warning, it started running towards them at high speeds.

"Look out!" Coach yelled as everyone got out of the way except for Chell, who was paralyzed with fear. Everyone tried to shoot the charger. The last thing Chell felt was a hand wrapping around her body and being slammed into a tree.

When Chell awoke, she was on the wooden floor in a room. The room had a few chairs, a table, and in one of the corners was a cooler. She tried getting up, and winced at the pain that seemed to resonate throughout her body. All of her limbs ached with pain, and she fell back to the ground. She turned over and saw that the red metal door was being opened, and through the bars she could see the starry night sky outside. In stepped Rochelle, Coach, Ellis and Nick. Chell asked "What… happened?".

Coach responded, "A charger got you. Pounded you into a tree. We killed it quickly though, so you weren't hurt too bad." He started loading a double-barreled shotgun and looked to the table, which had multiple guns and a stack of ammo. She sat up, and examined the room some more. On the wall hung a machete, katana, and a medieval-looking sword. In the corner opposing the one with the cooler sat the companion cube. She felt saddened for a moment, and then asked,

"Can we leave him here? You think he'll be safe?"

Nick chuckled. "What, the box?"

Rochelle gave Nick a quick glare and then said, "Yeah. I'm sure he'll be fine." Chell tried getting up again, but Coach sat her back down.

"You rest up. I'm guessin' we got a lotta walkin' to do tomorrow." He told her.

Then, Chell remembered something that was of significant importance. "Wait. I was attacked by that thing and I'm still not a zombie. Does that mean I'm immune?"

Ellis responded, grinning, "I think it does."

She smirked. With this newfound knowledge, she knew she could get through this apocalypse. She had to.


	3. Chapter 3: Ascending Heavenward

Ascending Heavenward

_You're going anywhere but Heaven._

Chell woke up to the sound of moaning, gurgling noises that penetrated her sleep. She sat up, hair messed up from rolling around in her sleep, and peered out the barred safe room door. She groaned as she realized that the noise was about five zombies trying to reach in through the safe room doors. "SHUT UP!" She roared in her mind as she grabbed a magnum from the table that was supplied with guns and shot them all in the face. She breathed heavily, and looked around. Everyone else was waking up from the gunfire.

Rochelle looked around, and asked "What time is it?" Nick held up his wrist so that he could read his watch. "8:34 in the morning." He said. Chell sat back down and rummaged through the cooler. Inside was a pack of water bottles and some canned foods. The canned foods included: Two can of beans, six cans of pasta, six granola bars, and some plastic spoons and forks. She took out a can of pasta and a water bottle, along with a fork. She stood up, and used a machete hanging on the wall to open the can. She started eating like a savage, she had been starving from the events of the day before. "Oh man, generic canned spaghetti has never tasted this good." She took a swig of the water bottle. "You might wanna slow down" Nick scoffed. Chell looked at him with an expression that resembled disdain coming from a twelve-year-old. Coach spoke, "Well, he has a point. We wanna conserve some of this."

Chell stayed silent for a moment, and then responded, "Yeah, I guess you're right. But we're not going to carry all of this are we? I mean, we have enough to carry around, not to mention all of the zombies are going to be hounding us." Ellis nodded in agreement. "We should just eat as much as we can and then hit the road. I reckon when we get to another safe house there'll be more food." Rochelle butted in. "But it would still be a good idea to bring some water."

After everyone was done eating, Chell stood up. She asked the group, "You guys know where the next safe room is?" Coach responded, "It's up ahead. We have to cut through this forest and then we go up a mountain some. The safe room should be up ahead." Chell responded with worry, "Should be?" Coach shrugged. "You oughta stock up on some weapons." Chell looked at the table with weapons. "Whoa. I think I'll use this brown one." She grabbed a bunch of ammo and stocked the weapon full of it, also grabbing a pouch with a strap to tie around her waist to store more ammo. "That's an AK-47. Sure you can handle that?" Ellis asked. Chell nodded. She went over to the Melee weapons rack, and unsheathed the katana. She decided that it would be wise to keep her pistol just in case she needed it. She put the katana's sheath on her waist, and sheathed the sword. "If it ever gets too close… this will come in handy." She noticed something else. "The portal gun… what do I do with it?" Nick responded, "It's not going to be really useful in the zombie apocalypse. I say dump it." She took one last look at the portal gun, which lie on the floor. So odd that she would feel sad about leaving it behind. Just a week ago (Or maybe it was a day? Time was hard to keep track of at Aperture.) she would have been more than ecstatic to be rid of it. She unhinged the barred metal door and walked out into hell.

As soon as she stepped out of the saferoom, a group of infected started to run at her. One of them clawed into her side, and she let out a shrill cry of surprise. Reacting quickly, she unsheathed the katana and filled with the rush of adrenaline, started slicing at the infected madly. Body parts flew everywhere, and the four other survivors looked at her, each one wondering the same thing. How can someone move _that_ fast?

A growling sound could be heard in the distance. "Bitch ass hunter around…" Nick said. In front of a tree which was about fifty feet or so in front of her, Chell saw a zombie that looked like a normal infected with a hoodie. It was crouched down, and Chell knew what it was going to do. As it pounced at her, roaring deafeningly, Chell swiped rapidly at the air, removing the limbs of the human-gone-feral.

Ellis started clapping. "Now that is what I call kickin' ass!" Chell smiled at him, happy that she could be of some use, that maybe she had a chance. They started into the forest again, going around trees and, occasionally, following signs with drawings of safe room doors and arrows.

After a few hours of walking and killing any zombies that they came across, Chell stopped. Her eyes widened and she pointed ahead.  
"G-guys? What… What is that!?" Rochelle, Ellis, Nick, and Coach all hid behind a large tree, and Coach grabbed Chell's arm and dragged her behind its cover as well. Rochelle peered from behind the tree, watching what lie ahead. "That thing, Chell, we call that thing a tank. It's basically like five chargers except it's a lot more deadly. The best way we've found to kill it is with a Molotov… Which we don't have." Nick said. _A tank? Oh no. Even the name sounds threatening. _The tank had been standing in the middle of the faded path that they were following. There was no other way to reach the safe room. Chell looked ahead from behind the tree, and saw the land start to go upwards behind the tank. "Look! The base of the mountain!" She squealed with delight. "We need to get past that thing.. but how?" She stopped. "Wait! Wait! Let me check my ammo pouch!" She rummaged through the pouch of ammo that she had grabbed, and found two incendiary bullets. She handed them to Nick. "Will these work?" Nick paused. "They should. They definitely should. Could I do the honors?" He asked Chell, who nodded. He loaded the two bullets into his shotgun (It was the only gun left, so he had to take it.), peeked behind the tree, aimed at the tank and pulled the trigger. The tank started burning immediately, grunting in pain. The fire had attracted other zombies, and they started running towards the survivors. "Shit!" Coach yelled. They slashed and shot the zombies, working their way towards the tank. Chell could already smell its burning flesh. She wanted to puke from the thought of where that smell was coming from.

The tank fell to its knees, already dead. Fire was its only true weakness, or so they had found. The fire, however, was also terrible for humans who happened to be in a forest. The fire caught onto one of the trees and had quickly spread to others. Chell ran with the group, coughing from the smoke. The smoke rose into the atmosphere. They escaped the forest and started heading up the mountain pass. When they were above the trees, they looked down at the burning forest. The forest stretched on for miles, but not in all directions, so the fire would die out after a day or so.  
They found the safe house, busted through the door, and covered it up. Chell flopped onto the safe room floor. "I'm going to die here, aren't I? I'm going to die in this godforsaken world. What happened? What happened to the earth I knew?"

"You ain't gonna die if we all stick together." Ellis reassured her. "And nobody really knows what happened. A disease just spread around real fast."

And that, she figured, was going to be the closest thing to an answer she was going to get.


	4. Chapter 4: Get Over It

**Get Over It**

_Don't think, just do._

She regarded Ellis's answer. "Wait, if nobody knows what happens then how do you know that a disease spread around?" She asked. Ellis paused.

"Well then I guess we do know what happened." Chell stopped talking to him for a moment. She saw in the room that there were some canned foods so she began to eat some and drink some water. Maybe she could get used to this life. She hadn't died yet and they _had_ gone pretty far already.

"If I had to guess I'd say it's around one o' clock or so, right?" Chell looked at Nick. He nodded.

"1:39" He said. Chell scoffed.

"I was pretty close," she chuckled slightly. She set her weapons to the side and said, "I'm pretty worn out from coming all this way… Can we wait for a few hours?"  
"Sure," Coach said, "That's what we do anyway. No point runnin' out there all tired. It'll just get you killed."

So they waited in the saferoom for three hours or so before they started to get bored. Chell took out her handgun and shot some of the zombies that were trying to reach into the saferoom. "Time to go almost, right?" She asked. Rochelle nodded. "We should start heading out now." Chell picked up her weapons and said, "Hey, I'll take the rear this time." Coach's eyes widened.

"You sure?" She nodded.

"Positive." She said, grinning.

"Well alright then, if you promise you've got our backs." Coach replied. Chell held her AK up and pointed towards the saferoom door.

"Alright," She said, half-yelling. "Let's move!" Nick went out first, taking the front, then Coach and Rochelle in the middle, and Ellis and Chell took up the rear. They ran at a pretty fast speed up the mountain, shooting scarce zombies in the head along the way. There weren't as many of them up here, Chell guessed that was because there weren't as many people living in the mountains.

As they reached the top of the mountain, Chell looked out across the distance. "It's… It's beautiful!" she said in awe. She could see the forest stretch on for miles, and to one side could see that the forest was separated by the one they burned by a river or stream of some sort. In the greater distance, straight ahead of them and beyond the trees she could see a large gray building next to a body of water. Then she looked down and saw the zombies.

There were a lot of them concentrated in the area at the base of the other side of the mountain. She pulled out her AK-47 and started firing at them as the others did as well. A small hump-backed zombie tried to jump on Ellis but Chell killed it before it could. Ellis thanked Chell, telling her that was a Jockey and "when one of those things ride you it's annoyin' as hell." She didn't doubt that it was annoying as hell, all of the zombies were annoying as hell to her.

While the others were distracted with the many zombies at the base of the mountain, Chell heard a coughing sound behind her. She swung around and saw a zombie hiding behind a tree, smoke coming from it. Its tongue came out and shot at her, wrapping her up and covering her mouth and wrapping around her neck so she couldn't scream or breathe. She started to get pulled towards it and when she was within its grasp it started to choke her harder. She started to see her vision blur around the edges, and just before she was about to black out, the smoking zombie exploded. She fell to the ground and coughed, unable to get back up for a few seconds. Ellis and Rochelle helped her up. Ellis said something to Rochelle but she couldn't exactly hear what it was. Then her hearing started to come back a little. "…got you…. Careful…. Sorry…..watching…. Zombies, I mean…. smokers are…" She smacked him weakly. "It's fine," She said, coughing. "Let's get out of this smoke." So they pulled her back towards the top of the mountain, where she sat down for a few moments so that her head would stop feeling so light.

She got up when she was feeling her strength come back. Ellis explained, "That was a smoker. They'll get you when you least expect it. Luckily Rochelle and I noticed that you were gettin' choked."

"You alright?" Rochelle asked.  
"I'm fine," She said as she looked down at the base of the mountain. Most of the zombies appeared to be cleared out by now. "Can we just go?"

"Hey Coach, Nick," Rochelle said. "Let's go now."  
They started to head down the mountain, but the slope made it difficult to control their pace. So they sprinted down it and slowed down as the mountain leveled out.

The five ran through the forest, Chell took out her katana and began slicing at any zombies that got too close. After a while they finally reached yet another safe room. "That little walk seemed to be shorter than the others," Chell said. "The distance between safe rooms is really inconsistent…"

"That they are," Nick said. "Kind of weird that they're like that. Some safe rooms are less than a mile apart."

Regardless, they entered the safe room and covered the door they had entered with a shelf and the other door as well.

"Did anyone else see that building?" Chell asked.

Rochelle nodded. "We should go check it out. It's a long walk but it might be worth it." Ellis asked, "What building?" Nick said, "There was a building all the way out past the trees, Ellis, you should have paid attention." Ellis said, "I was more payin' attention to the zombies, not to some building in the distance. Oh! Speaking of buildins in the distance, one time my buddy Keith had this firework show on top of this huge building, you could see it for MILES. The thing is, he used too many fireworks so it was technically illegal…." Nick said, "Ellis, we don't want to hear another one of your stories." Nick sighed.

"I'm going to take a nap." Chell drowned out the others' conversations as she lay down and eventually she drifted off to sleep.


End file.
